Working Life

I’m all for a little rhetoric and bashing CEOs who, as a class, have lined their pockets while pillaging the country. But, if the point is to stop the legal looting of corporate treasuries and leave some money in the till for regular workers, when you get right down to it, the CEO pay caps […]

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    I would have put a "BREAKING" on this title but, in some ways, this is not a new story–just another twist to the same-old political as usual. I’m all for the cap on executive compensation announced by the president. But, the culture of Washington is not changing–and it’s getting worse.   Today, the Center […]

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   I know this would be a tough one for most everyone because, let’s face it, half a million dollars a year is not what it once was. Pity those poor executives who may have their pay capped if they come to taxpayers for a bailout: “That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a […]

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  Perhaps only the prospect of hanging at dawn focuses the mind more than money. And now that we have the attention of all those banks and other folks who salivate at getting OUR (taxpayer) money through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), why not get something real out of them: write into new legislation […]

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   Paul Krugman makes a point today in his column that I, and others, have made before: Meanwhile, a Washington Post report based on administration sources says that Mr. Geithner and Lawrence Summers, President Obama’s top economic adviser, “think governments make poor bank managers” — as opposed, presumably, to the private-sector geniuses who managed to […]

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   Yes, as the president said, the bonuses taken by Wall Street bankers are shameful. But, there is an even larger shame happening in the country: the plundering of America by the richest Americans and our unwillingness to call for significantly higher taxes on the elite.   Buried in the business section of The New […]

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   Yours truly is on a plane soon for the rest of the day, more or less. But, here’s a quick little something to make your heart grow fonder for those incomptent, greedy people who helped crater the financial system: By almost any measure, 2008 was a complete disaster for Wall Street — except, that […]

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  It’s often said we live in a global economy. Yet, we tend to spend most of our time thinking only about how the economic financial crisis has sent a sea of Americans to the jobless line. The global picture, however, is even more catastrophic: 50 million additional people may find themselves jobless by the […]

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   If anyone–like obstructionist Republicans–had any doubt that we have no time to waste on the stimulus, we are peering over the edge of the abyss: Furloughs, wage reductions, hiring freezes and shorter hours simply did not do enough. A year into this recession, companies across the board are resorting to mass job cuts. Home […]

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    I suppose nothing should surprise us. But, here’s another one in a list of "let them eat cake" moments: CEOs are getting major boosts in their pensions, while the pensions of most Americans have either disappeared or take a major hit.   This article largely escaped notice in last week’s Wall Street Journal, whose […]

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